Will Trump’s Election Unleash Bibi?

The president-elect says he doesn’t want a new war in the Middle East. But what he wants may not matter.

When Donald Trump won reelection last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated him for making “history’s greatest comeback.”

“Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America,” Netanyahu tweeted a half hour after Trump announced his win. “This is a huge victory!”

There are two broad explanations for Netanyahu’s enthusiasm. One is that the Israeli leader is hoping to get back into Trump’s good graces after a dust-up over the results of the 2020 election. At the time, Netanyahu congratulated Biden on winning the election despite the fact that Trump was still contesting the results. Trump later argued that Netanyahu’s comments showed a lack of gratitude for everything that Trump had done for him. “Bibi could have stayed quiet,” Trump said. “He has made a terrible mistake.” 

A second, more worrying possibility is that Netanyahu sees Trump as the key to further escalation in the Middle East. Reports from earlier this year suggested that Netanyahu was biding his time—and possibly stalling ceasefire talks—in hopes that Trump would win the election. Netanyahu has prepared an “orderly and detailed plan” for going after Iran’s nuclear program following Trump’s reelection, according to an anonymous source close to the Israeli leader who spoke with Al Monitor. “It’s time for total victory,” Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said Wednesday.

Close observers of the Gaza conflict may wonder why Israeli officials are so enthusiastic about Trump’s return. The Biden administration, for all its expressions of concern about the suffering of Gazans and the risks of a wider war, has exercised little real restraint on Israel’s behavior. But Israel hopes the Trump administration will be a more willing collaborator on at least one major goal: the military destruction of Iran’s nuclear program.

Israeli leaders have good reason to see a difference between Biden and Trump on this point. Last month, when Biden publicly urged Israel to not attack Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, Trump slammed the comment as “the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.” And, while Trump himself may not want to start a war with Iran, his newly appointed foreign policy team certainly does. So it’s not hard to understand why Israeli officials see a difference between the long leash they got from Biden and the blank check they hope to get from Trump.

An early sign of Netanyahu’s ambitions for the Trump era came on Friday.